1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the dynamic interactive display of digital images, and particularly to dynamic interactive graphical user interfaces for producing displays and presentations of digital images.
2. Description of Related Art
Devices capable of capturing digital images are in widespread use and are continuing to grow in popularity. One such device, the digital camera, has become extremely popular, especially those digital cameras that form an integral part of other types of digital communication devices such as cell phones and PDAs. The direct result of this development is the proliferation of digital images.
Simultaneous with the proliferation of digital images is the advent of the Internet, with email and large amounts of digital data burdening digital transmission modes, computing power and data storage. These factors have resulted in the need for user-friendly and efficient ways for digital images to be collected, stored, accessed, presented and distributed.
Prior art approaches to the collection, storage, accessing, presentation and/or distribution of digital images include the use of File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”) between a server and a manually created web page, often combined with a static or dynamic HTML web page presentation. This approach requires substantial programming expertise and is difficult to adapt to a wide variety of user environments. Online photo sharing services represent another prior art approach that offers limited presentation options with little or no means for user interactivity. Another prior art approach, commonly known as snapshot “blogging” on websites located on the World Wide Web, offers limited presentation options and user interactivity is limited to user comments and uploads.